Sunday truffling.....

Our Local History Society opened a pop-up shop at a nearby village vide grenier today.

It was textile heaven; definitely my favourite haunt of the day. I didn`t know where to start. 

The window display was full of 1920s, 30s and 40s hats.

 
Everything had been painstakingly labelled and priced and those wonderful ladies must have worked SO hard to get the goods from the old closed down shop ready.

Linens, lace, period costume,  gloves, old Paisley shawls, fragments of needlepoint, textile morceaux, old cottons and threads, 1940s shoes......the list goes on.

They had also cleared out and put up for sale some fancy dress clothing which had been saved from 
numerous village carnivals over the years - and the ladies from the society giggled like school girls as they transformed Mark into Toulouse Lautrec - or was it, perhaps, Abraham Lincoln!

It was a very very long day but my truffled hoard is wonderful. Now this coming week I have to photograph and list it all.

A la prochaine mes belles
xxx

Flappers...the roaring 20s...

I so love this compilation............

What an incredible era!!

A la prochaine mes belles

xx

Just look at me now!

Remember me like this?

Oui? Well just look at me now!!!

Charles le Baron du Breuil.....spoiled rotten at Le Petit Chateau!!

Bon weekend mes belles, brocantes galore here this weekend.

xxxxx

Grease my ears............

This local chateau was in ruins until someone bought it and began to renovate. The shutters were broken and hanging off and the brambles almost concealed the whole building. It was a little like the enchanted castle where sleeping beauty lay until the prince chopped his way through! Every time I pass I have to stop and peer through the railings.

One day I am going to get my head stuck between them and you are going to have to come and grease my ears to get me out!! Actually if you are going to do that just remove me with the railings around my head....I could think of lots of uses for them here!! I always wonder if someone is looking back at me through one of those windows saying " That wierdo is back again"!

As we speak there is still no sign of a pumpkin but I have discovered we seem to have all male flowers and no female flowers. There is a huge amount of testosterone in the pottager vegetable patch at the moment. Perhaps there is some kind of a pumpkin flower dating agency where my plant could pick up a mate? 

I am still trawling through the chateau textiles and this latest pair of Lyon silk boudoir curtains may be faded as they have been tied back for so long but oooh la la  they are beautiful!

And then we discovered this batch of gorgeous glass covered orchard labels that were apparently used in the orangerie where the seedlings were started.

Firstly...they do not open so how did they seal the paper labels inside?

Secondly...who cares they are delicieux!!!

A la prochaine mes belles
xxxx

What a gale................

I am trying to photograph this beautiful silk and velvet chateau pelmet in a lashing gale!

More than once both the pelmet with me attached has almost flown over the marsh.

It is a little like the Mary Poppins film where she flies in over the roof tops holding her bag.....except that I will be clutching a swag and tail pelmet with a Jack Russell terrier Sir Digbert Fanshaw Brownshaw clinging to my 
ankles!

If I manage to get it photographed I will list it tonight. If it is not listed please check your rooftop for I may be there hanging on to your chimney.

As we speak there is still no pumpkin!!!

Venice wings............

Everywhere you turn....there are wings in Venice!

I have to wait until next February for my next Venice fix!

I took the new blog header photograph whilst walking around the old part of the graveyard on the island in Venice. I remember being intrigued by the ballet shoes and flowers and never copied down the details. Now I am so desperate to find the name and the history behind it. It will be the first stop for me when I get back there.

Alas still no pumpkin........

Have a wonderful weekend mes belles
xxxxx

If it aint broke don`t fix it.....

Ebay always had an " about me" page that worked well but they seems to have moved the goal posts yet again and I am now supposed to write a review?
So I have had a little dabble but now it seems to be missing!!

It should be here!!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/Truffling-for-treasures-/10000000178766872/g.html

Oh well! 

I have just toured the garden and alas still no pumpkin....I am " sans" pumpkin...lacking in pumpkin...without pumpkin...pumpkinless.

I may have to buy one and find a way to glue it to the sad array of leaves lurking in the pottager!

A la prochaine mes belles
xxxx

NO need to raise the ransom...

I have had several emails to see if I have been kidnapped.......I know I haven`t blogged but it`s just been a bit loop the loop here at the chateau!

We are having a wonderful Summer and sunrise and sunset across the marsh are breathtaking.

 We have had hosts of guests and the chateau has been a conveyor belt of friends, family, suitcases, travelling cots, baby gates, barbeques, beach days, brocanting, renovations and pumpkin pampering!

 Paddling pools for the youngsters have been inflated and then thrown away and replaced each time Charles Le Baron sees one as he cannot resist digging his claws in!

We had a birthday party in the garden for our 4 year old grand daughter which saw Mark up into the early hours trying to draw a donkey for a "pin the tail, on the donkey" game. All I can say is that if there is by some chance , anywhere in the world,  a poor creature that looks like that it should be put out of its misery.

 The party was a very girly affair in the fabulous sunshine with the most amazing cup cakes produced by my friend Jan who is a superstar in the baking department. They looked so good all together that I became slighty possessive about them and didn`t want them to be eaten!

The chateau attic textiles are still in heaps everywhere in various stages of cleaning, drying or being beaten into submission and I have been promised more in the weeks to come.To that I say " Merci Monsieur....keep bagging them up and shipping them my way !!".  My only dilemma is that there are some stunning single curtains so should I sell them or wait to see if their other half arrives?

Sir Digbert has become completely deaf and we are now communicating by sign language and it seems to work well.  He keeps his eyes on my face and I keep my eyes on where he is wandering to and spend my life running after him as he can`t hear me call him back! Whilst the hay is being gathered and brought in off the marsh I have been frantic he will not hear a tractor approaching and might get squashed and then I will have to terminate a local farmer. I shall then be writing my blog from a prison in Paris.

The renovations here continue and hopefully we will be having two extra bedrooms soon. With the good weather we are concentrating on doing the outside building jobs while we can. Sometimes the marsh tries to take the garden back and we have to beat it into submission! I know the marsh was here long before the chateau was built in 1838 but it can at least let me have a little morceau for my lawn!

The Venice garden is still half built and once the chateau becomes less like an asylum we will get back to the wall building.

In the Spring I stupidly threw down the gauntlet to our friends to see who could grow the biggest pumpkin for Halloween. Already there are some enormous contenders and I have to confess that as yet I don`t even have a pumpkin to show! There has already been espionage and attempted eliminations within the ranks. Our attempts to detonate a particularly large specimen of a friend was rumbled! 

Some growers are going to some amazing lengths to protect their pumpkin patch.

 I have lots of leaves and flowers but nothing to show for my efforts...not even a pea sized pumpkin!  I am putting on a brave face by telling the others that they have peaked too soon but behind closed doors I am sobbing into my faded florals!

A la prochaine mes belles, any pumpkin forcing hints will be gratefully received!

xxxxxxx